As a power user, you probably get a lot of questions—some multiple times. Here is a FAQ crowdsourced by the Adobe Analytics community to help save you time. Instead of taking the time to answer the same questions repeatedly, you can point your users to this FAQ. Feel free to send them the link, copy and paste answers, and of course, contribute your FAQs to help the rest of the community.
To contribute your FAQ, just leave the information in a comment below, and then it will be reviewed and added to the table.
Why am I seeing discrepancies when summing visits and unique visitors?
It is important to be very careful when summing visits and unique visitors. While doing this - in excel, calculated metrics, or totals in Workspace - keep in mind that
- One visit can consist of multiple pages.
Example 1:
The Warning: A report with Pages as the dimension and Visits as the metric should not be summed.
Why: This is because 1 visit could include the home page and the search results page.
Tell Me More: So, for this visit, the Pages Report will have a "home page" row and a "search results page" row. Each row will have 1 in the Visits column. If you summed these two rows, you would get 2 visits. This is inaccurate, as it was just 1 visit that consisted of 2 pages) the home page and the search results page).
- One visitor can have multiple visits.
Example 2:
The Warning: A report with Day as the dimension and Unique Visitors as the metric should not be summed up to determine how many unique visitors came during the week or the month or the quarter, etc.
Why: This is because 1 visitor could have come to the site on Monday, November 3, and then again on Wednesday, November 5.
Tell Me More: Since the report uses Day as the dimension, the metric will show how many unique visitors came on that specific day. If you summed Monday through Sunday to see how many unique visitors came that week, you would overcount because you would have counted the same visitor twice -- when the visitor came on Monday and when the visitor came back on Wednesday. To get the Unique Visitors for a week or month or quarter or any other date range, the dimension has to be that same timeframe.
Would you be able to tell me the average time people spend on our site?
While Time on Site or Time on Page sounds like a promising indicator, it can be misleading. Is more time on-site or on-page really good? What if people are having trouble finding what they need and that is driving up the time on site.... that's no bueno. Or what if people are quickly finding exactly what they need and that is driving the time-on-site down... That is good. I'd suggest using other indicators to demonstrate site health.
My marketing pixel report has a higher number than Adobe Analytics.
If the marketing pixel fires off on a specific page when running the Adobe Analytics report pull in both the visits and page views metrics. If the marketing pixels fire off every time the page is loaded, then use the page views metric for the comparison. If the marketing pixel only fires off once (no matter how many times the page is displayed), then use the visits metric for the comparison.
How do I change "Other" to "Desktop" so that my reports say "Desktop", "Mobile", and "Tablet"?
Create hit-level segments for these three devices. Name the segments "Desktop", "Mobile", and "Tablet". Use these segments in your report.
How do I break down the "Apple iPhone" to see what version of the phone people are using?
The Mobile Devices report relies on the User-Agent to know the version of the phone. Apple does not always provide this level of detail in the User-Agent. A workaround is to capture the screen resolution and create classifications for the various versions. Here's a site with the resolutions for iPhone devices - https://www.ios-resolution.com/
How is Browser and Browser Type data captured?
The User-Agent contains information that allows Adobe to determine the browser the visitor is using.
How is Operating System and Operating System Type data captured?
The User-Agent contains information that allows Adobe to determine the operating system the visitor is using.
How are Cities, Countries, Regions, US DMA, and US States data captured?
The IP is utilized to determine the visitor's city, country, region, DMA, and State.
How can I compare this fiscal year-to-date to the last fiscal year-to-date?
Create a custom Date Range for this year. The start date for this year is the first day of the fiscal year, say July 1, 2021. The end date needs to be set to "rolling" daily. Create a custom Date Range for last year. The start date for last year is the first day of the fiscal year, say July 1, 2020. The end date needs to be set to "rolling" daily minus 365 days.
How can I share my Workspace with others?
Within your Workspace, click on Share (at the top left). Then click on "Get project link"
Occurrences should not make appearances in your leadership-facing reports or read-outs.
Occurrences have their time and place - and that time and place is not a stand-alone metric in your report or read-out. This is because Occurrences are incremented when the given dimension (aka behavior) is initially done and continues to be incremented in every Adobe Analytics call afterward - both page view tracking (s.t) and link tracking (s.tl). So, the stand-alone value it produces is going to be quite a large number!
In typical reports or read-outs, values such as the number of visits or the number of times a behavior took place are presented. To get these values, please use metrics such as visits, page views, the Instance of eVarx, or a custom success event. (Please note that Occurrences are not in that list).
Occurrences do have their place. Please work closely with your Adobe Analytics team when using Occurrences in your analysis to ensure the application of this "I count everything!" metric is done appropriately.
Why don't I see the search terms/keywords people are putting into Search Engines, like Google or Bing, in Adobe Analytics? The Search Keywords reports either say "unspecified" or "keyword unavailable".
In 2011, Search Engines started using "Secure Search" which hides the search terms/keywords people are searching on. This "Secure Search" impacts all analytics tools, not just Adobe Analytics.
You can also import keywords using Data Sources which you can learn more about here.
What does Typed/Bookmarked mean, and why is it showing up in my referring domain?
If a hit does not have any referrer data (either set or persisted), it groups under the dimension item "Typed/Bookmarked". This dimension item means that there was no referrer value, such as if the visitor manually typed the browser address into the address bar or clicked a bookmark. The "Typed/Bookmarked" dimension item also appears for redirects that don’t accommodate Analytics.
What does a segment do/how is it used?
A segment is essentially a filter you can use in Adobe Analytics to help see a group of items in one place, rather than manually filtering the dimensions. One example of why you use a segment is if you are comparing multiple groups of data, and only need the high-level dimension info.
How can I show/see the percentage change between two metrics?
Multiple ways - If you are in a freeform table, you can select the metrics you want to compare, and right-click, find percent change. You can also create a calculated metric.
Why are tracking codes showing up on pages they aren't connected to?
This could be because of the way your cookies are set up. For example, if your cookies are set up to track for 1 week, the tracking code you first came to the site with may be where it's attributed, and it will "follow" you around for a week.
How can I have my custom date ranges show up by the date order?
If you have custom date ranges set up (such as fiscal weeks), and want them to show up in date order, you need to use 'enable table builder' within a workspace freeform table. There, you can drag in your date ranges in the order desired and add any metrics or segments you need as well. Then click 'build'. To edit, do NOT drag in components or else you will lose your set order. Instead, use the pencil icon top right of the freeform table to make changes and then hit 'build' again
Why is it that when I send a link to a report, users are not able to view it?
Copying the URL directly from the browser will not work. In order to share a report, go to the 'share' menu and click 'get project link'. Note that you need to have added this user to the report by using the 'share project' option in the same menu prior to that
How can I download a large amount of data from workspace?
For the freeform table in question, right-click at the top and select 'download items as CSV'. This will allow you to download up to 50,000 rows of data
Why is my report blank even though I know data is being collected?
There are several things to check to troubleshoot report data:
- Check the metrics used: Some reports default to Revenue in Reports & Analytics. Make sure the metric you’re viewing is relevant to the report.
- Check the date range: Date ranges, especially those beyond your organization’s data retention policy, can return no data.
- Check to make sure your date range is set correctly.
- Check internal URL filters: Some traffic sources reports do not work until after you correctly define internal URL filters.
Why is there a major delay in reporting?
Real-time reporting allows some traffic metrics to be available within minutes, while conversion and other processing-intensive data is usually available within 30-90 minutes. Though the Experience Cloud platform is robust, there are a few situations that may lead to delays in reporting. This delay is referred to as latency.
